Top 160 Kate Chopin Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “The Ratignolles understood each other perfectly. If ever the fusion of two human beings into one has been accomplished on this sphere it was surely in their union.”

— Kate Chopin

102. “The voice of the sea is seductive, never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation.”

— Kate Chopin

103. “He greatly valued his possessions, chiefly because they were his, and derived genuine pleasure from contemplating a painting, a statuette, a rare lace curtain – no matter what – after he had bought it and placed it among his household gods.”

— Kate Chopin

104. “Edna Pontellier could not have told why, wishing to go to the beach with Robert, she should in the first place have declined, and in the second place have followed in obedience to one of the two contradictory impulses which impelled her.”

— Kate Chopin

105. “She reminded him of some beautiful, sleek animal waking up in the sun.”

— Kate Chopin

106. “What shall we do there?” “Climb up the hill to the old fort and look at the little wriggling gold snakes, and watch the lizards sun themselves.”

— Kate Chopin

107. “There was with her a feeling of having descended in the social scale, with a corresponding sense of having risen in the spiritual. Every step which she took toward relieving herself from obligations added to her strength and expansion as an individual. She began to look with her own eyes; to see and to apprehend the deeper undercurrents of life. No longer was she content to “feed upon opinion” when her own soul had invited her.”

— Kate Chopin

108. “Most women are moody and whimsical.”

— Kate Chopin

109. “Conditions would some way adjust themselves, she felt; but whatever came, she had resolved never again to belong to another than herself.”

— Kate Chopin

110. “It sometimes entered Mr. Pontellier’s mind to wonder if his wife were not growing a little unbalanced mentally. He could see plainly that she was not herself. That is, he could not see that she was becoming herself and daily casting aside that fictitious self which we assume like a garment with which to appear before the world.”

— Kate Chopin

111. “Every step which she took toward relieving herself from obligations added to her strength and expansion as an individual.”

— Kate Chopin

112. “Religion, loyalty, everything would give way if only you cared.”

— Kate Chopin

113. “His coming was in the nature of a welcome disturbance; it seemed to furnish a new direction for her emotions.”

— Kate Chopin

114. “There was with her a feeling of having descended in the social scale, with a corresponding sense of having risen in the spiritual.”

— Kate Chopin

115. “It was going to be a beautiful morning, I remember thinking, as I left the house; soft and close, bursting with whispered promises, as only a daybreak in early summer can be.”

— Kate Chopin

116. “In the procession I should feel the crushing feet, the clashing discords, the ruthless hands and stifling breath. I could not hear the rhythm of the march.”

— Kate Chopin

117. “If her talent had been ten-fold greater than it was, it would not have surprised him, convinced as he was that he had bequeathed to all of his daughters the germs of a masterful capability, which only depended upon their own efforts to be directed toward successful achievement.”

— Kate Chopin

118. “Mr. Pontellier wore eye-glasses. He was a man of forty, of medium height and rather slender build; he stooped a little. His hair was brown and straight, parted on one side. His beard was neatly and closely trimmed.”

— Kate Chopin

119. “The heart jealous of the soul!”

— Kate Chopin

120. “I trust it will not be giving away professional secrets to say that many readers would be surprised, perhaps shocked, at the questions which some newspaper editors will put to a defenseless woman under the guise of flattery.”

— Kate Chopin

121. “He was quite portly, with a profusion of gray hair, and small blue eyes which age had robbed of much of their brightness but none of their penetration.”

— Kate Chopin

122. “Many had predicted that Robert would devote himself to Mrs. Pontellier when he arrived. Since the age of fifteen, which was eleven years before, Robert each summer at Grand Isle had constituted himself the devoted attendant of some fair dame or damsel. Sometimes it was a young girl, again a widow; but as often as not it was some interesting married woman.”

— Kate Chopin

123. “Romances serve but to feed the imagination of the young; they add nothing to the sum of truth.”

— Kate Chopin

124. “It seems to me if I were young and in love I should never deem a man of ordinary caliber worthy of my devotion.”

— Kate Chopin

125. “She began to do as she liked and to feel as she liked.”

— Kate Chopin

126. “Since I was a girl I always felt as if I would like to write stories. I never had that ambition or shine to make a name; first place because I knew what time and labor it meant to acquire a literary style. Second place, because whenever I wanted to write a story I never could think of a plot.”

— Kate Chopin

127. “She liked then to wander alone into strange and unfamiliar places. She discovered many a sunny, sleepy corner, fashioned to dream in.”

— Kate Chopin

128. “I hope you won’t completely forget me.”

— Kate Chopin

129. “I leave such ventures ti you younger men with the fever of life still in your blood.”

— Kate Chopin

130. “I am no longer one of Mr. Pontellier’s possessions to dispose of or not. I give myself where I choose.”

— Kate Chopin

131. “She was happy to be alive and breathing, when her whole being seemed to be one with the sunlight, the color, the odors, the luxuriant warmth of some perfect Southern day.”

— Kate Chopin

132. “No, I only think you cruel, as I said the other day. Maybe not intentionally cruel; but you seem to be forcing me into disclosures which can result in nothing; as if you would have me bare a wound for the pleasure of looking at it, without the intention or power of healing it.”

— Kate Chopin

133. “The golden shimmer of Edna’s satin gown spread in rich folds on either side of her. There was a soft fall of lace encircling her shoulders. It was the color of her skin, without the glow, the myriad living tints that one may sometimes discover in vibrant flesh. There was something in her attitude, in her whole appearance when she leaned her head against the high-backed chair and spread her arms, which suggested the regal woman, the one who rules, who looks on, who stands alone.”

— Kate Chopin

134. “Mrs. Pontellier was beginning to realize her position in the universe as a human being, and to recognize her relations as an individual to the world within and about her.”

— Kate Chopin

135. “Pirate gold isn’t a thing to be hoarded or utilized. It is something to squander and throw to the four winds, for the fun of seeing the golden specks fly.”

— Kate Chopin

136. “So does he live, seeking, finding, joying and suffering.”

— Kate Chopin

137. “Then the candor of the woman’s whole existence, which every one might read, and which formed so striking a contrast to her own habitual reserve – this might have furnished a link. Who can tell what metals the gods use in forging the subtle bond which we call sympathy, which we might as well call love.”

— Kate Chopin

138. “She wanted to destroy something. The crash and clatter were what she wanted to hear.”

— Kate Chopin

139. “She would, through habit, have yielded to his desire; not with any sense of submission or obedience to his compelling wishes, but unthinkingly, as we walk, move, sit, stand, go through the daily treadmill of the life which has been portioned out to us.”

— Kate Chopin

140. “She could not have told why she was crying. Such experiences as the foregoing were not uncommon in her married life.”

— Kate Chopin

141. “A letter concerns no one but the person who writes it and the one to whom it is written.”

— Kate Chopin

142. “Don’t part from me in any ill humor. I never knew you to be out of patience with me before.”

— Kate Chopin

143. “Why,” went on Edna, clasping her knees and looking up into Mademoiselle’s twisted face, “do you suppose a woman knows why she loves? Does she select? Does she say to herself: ‘Go to! Here is a distinguished statesman with presidential possibilities; I shall proceed to fall in love with him.’ Or, ‘I shall set my heart upon this musician, whose fame is on every tongue?’ Or, ‘This financier, who controls the world’s money markets?”

— Kate Chopin

144. “I don’t want to part in any ill-humor. But can’t you understand? I’ve grown used to seeing you, to having you with me all the time, and your action seems unfriendly, even unkind. You don’t even offer an excuse for it. Why, I was planning to be together.”

— Kate Chopin

145. “Daisies, just starting to close their petals, littered the grass like fallen stars.”

— Kate Chopin

146. “The mother-women seemed to prevail that summer at Grand Isle. It was easy to know them, fluttering about with extended, protecting wings when any harm, real or imaginary, threatened their precious brood. They were women who idolized their children, worshiped their husbands, and esteemed it a holy privilege to efface themselves as individuals and grow wings as ministering angels.”

— Kate Chopin

147. “Or else she stayed in and nursed a mood with which she was becoming too familiar for her own comfort and peace of mind. It was not despair; but it seemed to her as if life were passing by, leaving its promise broken and unfulfilled.”

— Kate Chopin

148. “She met the pleasurable things of life with frank, open appreciation, and against distasteful conditions she rebelled. Dissimulation was as foreign to her nature as guile to the breast of a babe, and her rebellious outbreaks, by no means rare, had hitherto been quite open and aboveboard.”

— Kate Chopin

149. “They had been permitted to sit up till after the ice-cream, which naturally marked the limit of human indulgence.”

— Kate Chopin

150. “She liked money as well as most women, and accepted it with no little satisfaction.”

— Kate Chopin